On The Other Side
by Skaz Wolfman
Summary: In memoriam to the victims of the Battle of Beacon. Because death is not the end. (Had to get this out of my system before Volume 4 drops.)
1. Part I

**On the Other Side.**

 **Part I: Pyrrha.**

Pyrrha wasn't sure what she had been expecting to hear upon arriving in the afterlife. A choir of angels accompanied by harp music, perhaps? Something more modern, maybe? Did they have dubstep in Heaven, or Elysium, or wherever she was? What she wasn't expecting to hear, though, was the ocean. The gentle rushing of the tide and powerful crush of breaking waves. The call of seabirds and the dinging bell of a distant buoy. She even heard a long, loud bass note that she suspected was the foghorn of a lighthouse. Her feet were bare and felt damp, as if they were being tickled by the surf, and she felt like she were lying facedown in something fine and gritty…sand? The more she thought about it, the more certain she was that she was on some kind of beach. It felt like she was wearing clothes…but she noted with just a bit of panic that she had no armor on. Even worse, she was unarmed! Hopefully she wouldn't have to fight any demons or anything like that.

Pyrrha opened her eyes, and saw that she was indeed lying on a beach with soft white sand. Her head was turned so that one of her cheeks was kissing the sand and the other was being kissed by the wind. While she was thinking of kisses, she remembered the pleasant heat on her lips from her farewell kiss to Jaune. She already missed him, and she closed her eyes again and silently prayed–maybe you got better reception on this side?–that he would be alright. Then she opened her eyes again and started getting up to her feet. It was surprisingly easy, considering how crummy she had felt just before the end. In fact, she felt as light as a feather. She tilted her head back and observed that the sky was slightly overcast; the cloud cover wasn't dark enough to threaten rain, but just enough to soften the glare of the Sun, which appeared to be directly overhead. Pyrrha then looked down, and her eyes widened. She was wearing an adult-sized version of the most comfortable pajamas she had ever worn, which she had outgrown years ago. She turned and looked around, but her armor and her trusty shield and weapon were nowhere to be found. She did, however, spot a lone fisherman standing in the water out a ways. He had a long, pale white fishing pole in his hands, and the tilt of his head suggested he was looking at a point somewhere just a little bit under the horizon.

Pyrrha opened her mouth, but stopped. She figured it would be rude to shout to him; it would scare away the fish, wouldn't it? Then again, she felt a bit irked; he was the only other person around, which either meant that her guide to the afterlife was late, or he was it and he was fishing on the job. Not that Pyrrha expected anyone to hold her hand, or anything, but this _was_ her first time dying. She had no clue what to do, and there was no helpful little voice in her head giving her suggestions, so she assumed she was supposed to have some kind of guide. Pyrrha looked down at the surf lapping at her feet, and realized abruptly that while she could _feel_ the water, she wasn't actually getting wet. She stepped out into the sea until she was in up to her ankles, and then backed out. Her feet, and the ankles of her pajama pants, were perfectly dry. She stepped back into the surf and waded out until she stood abreast of the fisherman. At this distance she could see that he had pale skin and little skull earrings. She was certain he was aware of her presence, as close as she was, so she unabashedly tapped him on the shoulder and said, "Excuse me, but could you tell me where I am?"

"I could," said the fisherman in a silky-smooth and feather-soft voice, "But I don't see why I need to. You know where you are, and I know that you know where you are, so don't try playing dumb."

Pyrrha frowned. "Okay…so, are you supposed to be my guide, or are you another…um…spirit?"

"Are you asking if I'm a spirit, of if spirit is the right word to use?" the fisherman asked wanly. Before she could reply, he sighed and said, "Come now, Pyrrha Nikos. Uncertainty does not become you. I would expect anyone who came to me as you did to take the next step with a bit more confidence. Here, hold this for me. Firmly," he said, pressing his fishing pole into her hands. Pyrrha gripped the pole, which she was surprised to realize was made of _bone_ , without really thinking about it, and as soon as she did she felt a tremendous weight pulling at her. She buckled forward and strained to pull herself back without dislocating her shoulders or losing the pole. It took every ounce of her strength just to stand up straight, and she couldn't keep her arms from shaking with the strain. Next to her, the fisherman bent down and pulled a bottle of water out of a tackle box floating next to him. He uncapped it and tipped it bottom-up, his Adam's apple bobbing up and down as he took what seemed to Pyrrha like an unnecessarily long drink. Then he capped the bottle, put it away, and took the pole back from Pyrrha. He held it casually with one hand while using the other to take off his hat and scratch at his head; his hair was short, downy, and snow-white. Pyrrha's arms would do nothing but hang limply at her sides and quiver like gelatin. He might have been a bit on the curt side, but Pyrrha couldn't help but respect the fisherman's profound strength.

"Wha…what's on the other end of that line?" she asked, gasping, "A whale?"

The fisherman shook his head. "A soul. A very heavy soul. Heavy with sin and shame; heavy with will, too. _Very_ strong will to live, this one. One of the heaviest souls I've had to reel-in in…oh, a fair while I'd say. He's putting up a heck of a fight, too. I've been trying to reel him in since before you died."

"Who–"

"No one you knew, Pyrrha Nikos, and no one you'd be sad to see dead if you _did_ know him," replied the fisherman. "There is, however, someone waiting for you over at the lighthouse."

"My guide?" asked Pyrrha.

The fisherman sighed. "Haven't you figured it out yet, Pyrrha Nikos? You don't _have_ a guide. You don't _need_ a guide. Guides are for souls like the one I'm trying to reel in right now. Souls who weren't ready to die. You came to me gracefully. You had already accepted your mortality before the end, so you don't need any guidance here."

"Oh…I see. But then–"

(The fisherman sighed again)

"–what am I supposed to _do_?" asked Pyrrha almost desperately. "I…I don't…my path has always been laid out for me. When I was a little girl I wanted to learn how to fight, so I did. I wanted to grow stronger, so I went to Sanctum. I wanted to become the very best Huntress I could possibly be, so I enrolled in Beacon. Now I'm here, but I don't know anything _about_ 'here'. What am I supposed to _do_?"

"Alright, alright," said the fisherman, shaking his head and smiling sheepishly, "The manner in which you faced your death rather impressed me, so I was convinced you were wiser than this. I forgot to consider your age…someone as young as you shouldn't be expected to know what comes next. Very well. You have three choices." He once again shifted to a one-handed grip and put up one finger on his free hand. "One, you could stick around here for a while, as most souls do when they first arrive, and relax. Enjoy the cessation of your mortal woes. Maybe explore the beach, or the forest," he pointed back towards the shore; Pyrrha followed his finger and saw that there was, indeed, a dense-looking forest just beyond the beach, "Or what's beyond the forest. A lot of souls stay here because it seems like where they came from, they think they can pretend they haven't _really_ died, just gone Elsewhere. That's why they don't hang around _here_ much; I make them uncomfortable. If you think there's someone here waiting to meet you, you'll probably find them at the lighthouse. That seems to be a popular gathering spot for souls, for some reason. And as I said, there _is_ someone waiting for you there."

"And suppose I don't want to stay? Suppose I'm ready to 'move on'. What are my other two choices?" asked Pyrrha.

The fisherman put up another finger and continued, "Depends on which way you want to go. Onwards, or Backwards? If you want to move on, head down the beach that-a-way," he pointed, "until you find the pier. Wait until sunset and my sister will show up with her ferry to take you Onwards. Time and space here aren't what you're used to, so I can't tell you how long you'll have to walk or how long you'll wait when you get there, but if you really want to see 'What's Next', that's the way to go." He put up one more finger, "If you'd rather stay and try to play another hand, as it were, I could always send you back."

For a half a second, Pyrrha dared to hope. "You…could you really? Send me back, I mean?"

The fisherman sighed again, but this time he sighed sadly rather than exasperatedly. "I'm sorry, Pyrrha Nikos; I worded myself poorly. I can send you back to the Material, but not as who you were. You'll be reborn as someone else. New identity, new memories, so on and yadda-yadda. Do they know about reincarnation on…what world were you from again? Vytal?"

Pyrrha frowned. "No…Vytal is an island. The _world_ is called Remnant. How do you not–"

"Life has sprung up on _thousands_ of worlds, in _thousands_ of universes; sometimes I have a hard time keeping track of them all," explained the fisherman. "Speaking of which, it's not even certain you'll go back to Remnant. You probably will, but theoretically you could wind up on _any_ life-baring world."

"I see," said Pyrrha, who was surprised at how uninterested she found herself to hear that there was life beyond Remnant.

In spite of herself and her determination to face death with dignity, she had gotten her hope up for just a moment, and now the reminder that there was no going back to the only world she knew just…weighed her down. Almost worse than the soul on the other end of the fishing pole had. She missed Jaune. And Ren, and Nora, and the rest of her classmates. It seemed that she had just started getting to know them. She had just started making real progress with Jaune. She had finally kissed him! But only once…seventeen years, and she had only kissed a boy once. She hadn't even used her tongue! Which, admittedly, she would have been way too embarrassed to do right then, but in hindsight it seemed like such a missed opportunity. And not the only one, either. Heading to safety with Jaune and living to kiss him more than once seemed like a much better idea now. She wished she had given Ozpin an answer sooner; if she'd said yes sooner, she would have already had Amber's Aura and power when that woman had sprung her trap; if she'd said no, Ozpin might have had time to find another, more willing candidate. Nora probably would have jumped at the chance for magical powers and wouldn't have sweated deep existential questions, like 'what'll having someone else's Aura in me do to my sense of self?' Pyrrha kept wandering down this train of thought, going over all the things she should have done _instead_ of running back to her death, or at least things she should have done _before_ she had died. She was only seventeen, and looking back she realized that she had hardly done anything other than train to become a Huntress (which she had died before accomplishing) and making a few friends at what felt like the last minute. Pyrrha had always been proud and confident in her choices…but as bitter tears of regret and disappointment slid down her cheeks, she realized what a huge and wasteful mistake she had made. Why had she pushed herself so much? She could have aimed to be a more average Huntress and had more time to live her life for herself. Maybe then she'd have more happy memories to look back on now that she was on the other side. Or at least she could have listened to Jaune and lived to fight another day. Lived to _live_ , period. Maybe then she'd still be alive, having a much more comprehensive and fulfilling first kiss/make-out session with Jaune right now. She'd be with her friends, mourning the fallen and making plans to avenge them instead of making her friends mourn _her_ and make plans to avenge _her_. She should have chosen to retreat, to live to fight another day, so she could train more, to realize her full potential and pose a more serious threat to the enemy. Oum, she had screwed up so badly! Why had she been so stu–

"Oh stop it!" snapped the fisherman, smacking her upside the back of her head and almost sending her flailing into the water. "Just stop your damn wallowing! I told you, Pyrrha Nikos, uncertainty does not become you. Neither does self-loathing, or second-guessing yourself. You're stronger than that. I shouldn't have to tell you things you already know, but apparently you're going to make me, so listen well," he said sternly.

Pyrrha glared at him through angry, puffy, moist eyes for a moment, but then she nodded.

"Alright. First of all, there's nothing to gain from getting down on yourself for making poor choices. What's done is done and you can't change it, so stop beating yourself up. It's embarrassing; way more embarrassing than only kissing a boy once in your life. What a silly thing to fret over…but then, humans do seem inordinately preoccupied with kissing," he admitted thoughtfully. "But in any case, I can assure you that the way you handled your choice was about as good as could be expected. True, agreeing to the process might have improved things…but you have no way of knowing that for sure. Neither do I, because what your people attempted is, in fact, unprecedented. The procedure could have catastrophically backfired even _without_ Cinder Fall's intervention. And even if they had found another candidate, that would not likely have improved the situation either because they came to you first for a reason; they felt you were the _best_ option. And no one can fault you for how you deliberated over your choice. Having your soul contaminated by another is a very valid thing to be worried about. Such a thing happens rarely in any world, but I can tell you that it rarely ends well. You were only human, and therefore very flawed even on your best day; no one, not even you, could have reasonably expected you to do any better, or any differently, than you did. And do you _really_ think Nora Valkyrie would have made a better Fall Maiden than you? Do you really think that girl, who admittedly has her heart in the right place, would have handled such awesome power responsibly? Or that she would have decided so easily? She hasn't even yet worked up the courage to tell Lie Ren how she really feels about him…but that's neither here nor there. And there was nothing foolish or wasteful about what you did, confronting Cinder Fall. After all, you weren't entirely yourself when you made that choice."

"I wasn't?" asked a surprised Pyrrha.

"Well of course not…did you not notice?" asked the fisherman, sounding annoyed again, "Look back, Pyrrha Nikos; under normal circumstances, does engaging an overwhelmingly obviously superior opponent with powers you didn't fully understand, all on your own, sound like something you would do? Does that even sound like something you would usually give any serious consideration whatsoever? You are a courageous and amazingly selfless person, Pyrrha Nikos. But you are neither a fool, nor given to suicidal overconfidence. Can you really believe that you were in your own right mind when you did that?"

"Well…no, now that you mention it," said Pyrrha thoughtfully, "But then–"

"Oh my Boss," snapped the fisherman, "Look, I'm sorry, I really don't mean to be short with you, but I'd really like to pull this jackass in _today_ , so just go to the lighthouse. She can explain this to you better than me, anyways. Okay?"

"Oh. Sorry," said Pyrrha sheepishly, "I'll do that then." She looked around and spotted the lighthouse, and she started heading towards it.

"Oh, hey!" the fisherman cried out, "I almost forgot; this washed up just before you got here. You're not likely to need it here, but I figured you'd want it back anyways." Pyrrha turned around, and the fisherman pulled something out of his box and tossed it to her. Her eyes widened as she recognized it, spinning end over end through the air, and she leaped up to catch it.

"But…but how? How did it–"

"What, you think only breathing things have souls?" asked the fisherman with a wry grin, "Tsk, tsk. Not very open-minded of you, Pyrrha Nikos. You might make it think it was wrong to show its master such loyalty."

Running her fingers over Miló's unblemished form, more perfect than she could ever remember it being, she had to choke back tears of gratitude. "B-but…what about 'you can't take it with you'?"

"Well firstly, that refers to material wealth. Secondly, you didn't take it anywhere; it _chose_ to follow you, rather than become something else. Only the most devoted weapons with the most dedicated masters do that, generally. Thirdly, where exactly did you hear that? I doubt it was from someone who actually remembered being here, right?"

"Right," agreed Pyrrha with a nod. She looked down and noticed she was wearing a belt with a scabbard that she didn't remember being there before. She sheathed Miló and started towards the lighthouse again, but–

"Wait! One more thing, I almost forgot. I'm expecting a new arrival before long that you probably won't want to miss, so wait for her at the lighthouse and I'll send her your way, okay?" asked the fisherman in a way that didn't sound much like a question.

"What?! Who?" asked Pyrrha, fear tearing at her heart again. _'Please, not Nora, or Ruby, or–'_

"Your friends are fine…well, they're not on their way here, at least. 'Fine' might be overselling it. But don't worry so much, just get going. The one waiting for you has something very important to say. Remember, _everyone_ finds their way here eventually," said the fisherman, having already turned back towards the horizon.

"Alright then…thank you!" Pyrrha called back with a friendly wave as she turned and continued on towards the lighthouse.

A/N: When I started this, it was going to be a oneshot. But about halfway through, Inspiration struck me like a frying pan to the back of the head! Only, less painful. Slightly. So anyways, I anticipate this will be a…four-parter. Yeah, that sounds about right. After all, Pyrrha was not the Battle of Beacon's only tragic loss.

Side note, does anyone think I made Pyrrha too...mopey? I don't know if that's the right word, but its the best I can come up with. I wouldn't have written her angsting this hard before all the Maiden drama because I really didn't think that would jive with Pyrrha's vibrant character, but I think episode 308, "Destiny", showed us all that yes, Pyrrha can angst as hard as any other teenagers when its appropriate. Still, I'd like some feedback on the subject.

So until next week, readers. Same RWBY time, same RWBY channel. Stay grand, everyone.


	2. Part II

**On The Other Side.**

 **Part II: Penny.**

She had no idea how long she had been drifting for, which was really odd since she had an internal clock to keep track of time for her. More distressingly, her sensors weren't telling her _anything_ , as if they weren't even there. She was used to monitoring the millions of electrical signals sending data throughout her body, but now they were silent. All she knew for sure was that she was drifting somewhere. She didn't feel like she was stationary, either; she was definitely drifting _somewhere_. She could feel something under her, covering her backside in a strange sensation that she had no name for. Normally, when she felt something, her exterior sensors sent the data to her central processor, which analyzed and interpreted the data, and then provided Penny with the word to describe it. She had been told that this was easier than trying to recreate the complex system of abstract impressions that the human brain generated to represent feelings like temperature and texture; it was also safer, because it spared her from a human condition the General called 'sensory overload'. When her body sustained damage her sensors notified her, but she didn't 'feel' pain the way humans did. The only sensations that could overwhelm her were the emotional kind; in theory, even those could have been filtered, but she was told that that was where her Father had drawn the line.

Now, however, her exterior sensors weren't sensing, her processors weren't processing, and she had no idea what was going on. She was afraid to even open her eyes, because she afraid to find out those were broken too. She could only hypothesize that what she was feeling was the way real people 'felt' things…but how? The last thing she remembered was her body being ripped apart by her own strings during her fight with Pyrrha, then all of her exterior sensors shutting down, followed by her interior sensors, and then everything else shut down as well. She supposed she had been brought in to Father's lab to be reassembled, but that didn't explain her inexplicable present state. She supposed her father and his assistants were trying to bring her back online and they were still calibrating her systems.

"I'm afraid not, Penny Polendina," spoke a man's voice, soft and smooth and low, somewhere above her. "I know it must be scary, but you have to open your eyes and brave the unknown if you want to know where you are."

Reluctantly, Penny opened her eyes. The sky overhead was lightly overcast, and she appeared to be floating on water. _'So that's what that feeling is. Wetness.'_ She found the source of the voice; a man standing over her, about knee deep in the water, dressed as a fisherman and wielding a bone-white fishing pole (made of actual bone, Penny noted) and staring out towards the horizon. She spotted tufts of snowy-white hair sticking out from under his hat, but his eyes were obscured by shadow. His smile seemed genuine and friendly enough, though.

"Salutations, sir," Penny said primly, "Am I floating on water?"

"Yes, you are," he replied.

"May I ask how that is possible? I am capable of swimming under my own power, but I am not buoyant enough to float like this. Is the water here unusually dense?"

"Hmm. Interesting question. I would say that like most other things in this place, the density of the water is somewhat subjective. A mountain could float here, if it had the will to, but a feather could sink if it gives in to fear," replied the fisherman, plucking the taut fishing line that stretched from the end of his pole.

"Um…that makes very little sense, sir," Penny pointed out, "Mountains and feathers are not sentient, and therefore have neither will nor fear…and the density of matter is a quantitative and objective value, not a subjective one."

"The water you're familiar with, perhaps. This place is different. And how do you know mountains and feather aren't sentient? Just because you don't know how to communicate with something doesn't mean it doesn't have a soul. _Everything_ has a soul," said the fisherman sagely.

"Not the Creatures of Grimm," corrected Penny.

"Well, you've got me there. I'll admit, this shore has seen a lot of strange creatures, but never a Grimm. But even that may change in time. You just never know. After all, I never expected to actually _meet_ the metaphorical ghost in the machine before."

"The what?" Penny asked.

"You, Penny Polendina," the fisherman clarified with a little chuckle, "Did your father never tell you about the ghost in the machine before? Well, I guess maybe that doesn't apply to your case; the ghost in the machine refers to a situation whereby a sufficient number of bugs and glitches in a sufficiently complex computer could, theoretically, culminate in the emergence of an artificial intelligence. You, on the other hand, were created very much on purpose. You were not happenstance, Penny Polendina, which is more than I can say for the beings that created you."

"Please, sir, I am very confused right now," said Penny, sitting up on the water, "I do not understand what is happening to me."

"Well, that's hardly surprising, given your current state. Try standing up," suggested the fisherman.

Penny did so, and was surprised to find that she stood atop the surface of the water. She recalled one of the technicians back home telling her a story similar to this, but she had been fairly certain that story had been merely metaphorical. "Sir," said Penny with just a smidge of fear creeping into her voice, "Where am I? What _is_ my current state?"

"You are…on the other side. You are dead, Penny Polendina. This is what mortals call the hereafter," said the fisherman somberly, almost sadly.

"I am…dead?" asked Penny, her eyes wide. "But I…I am not a human, I am a machine. Machines cannot die. In the event of a system failure, my memory should have backed up to an internal storage unit to be recovered by Atlesian operatives and returned to my father's lab for installation in a new platform."

"All of that is very true," agreed the fisherman placidly, "Unfortunately, while you can back up a computer's memory and stick it in a new platform and even transfer Auras, as Atlas discovered, you still can't back up a life-force. When the body dies, the soul moves on. That's just how it works. They're not going to go and rewrite the laws of life and death just because some clever humans figured out how to make a robot with a soul. And really, when you think about it, humans are just really inefficiently designed robots made out of organic matter. In fact, considering that a human is made up of trillions of cells all working together and self-replicating using ingested matter, one could argue that humans are, in fact, highly sophisticated constructs made up of organic nanobots. I bet that blows your processor, huh?"

"I…had not considered it from that perspective before," said Penny thoughtfully.

"See? Your friend, Ruby Rose, was right. The only difference between you and any other human is that you were made in a slightly different way, from slightly different materials. A lot more iron, for one," quipped the fisherman with a wink.

Penny couldn't help but giggle at that, and she felt her spirits raise a bit. "The General was right," Penny realized out-loud, "Death really can be sudden. So…this is what happens after death?"

"Oh, all sorts of things happen after me," the fisherman said quickly, "But what happens after _now_ is the important bit. You're here, Penny Polendina…how do you intend to proceed?"

Penny cocked her head and considered it. "Well…what are my options? Wait, which afterlife is this? Heaven? Hell? Purgatory? Valhalla? Elysium? Nirvana–wait, no, that one is characterized by a lack of consciousness–"

"Whoa, hold up. The answer is None Of The Above. This is the Other Side. And as far as I know, it's the only afterlife. Then again, I haven't died yet."

"Wait, _you_ can–"

"Penny Polendina, please, metaphysical discourse is not my vocation. I don't know for sure if I _can't_ die, so I have no reason to assume that I won't someday. I've been fishing souls out of this ocean for eons…and I don't mean figurative, hyperbolic eons either. I mean literal eons. I still remember the time _before_ humans and Fauna started washing up here."

"I see," said Penny. A thought occurred to her. "In that case, may I inquire; what was the cause of death for the first human that ever died?" she asked.

"Hmm…it had something to do with a broken leg. Either she died of starvation because she was alone and couldn't get food, or she died of infection. Don't really recall. So, am I to assume that you intend to hang out for a while before making your choice?" asked the fisherman.

"My choice?" asked Penny.

"Yes, Penny Polendina, your choice. Anyone who comes here is free to stay as long as they'd like…at least, no one's ever stayed so long that someone came along and made them leave, and some have hung around for several times longer than they actually lived. But anyways, eventually everyone makes the Choice. Backwards, or Onwards. You wanna go Onwards, walk down the beach," he pointed the way; Penny noted that there was a lighthouse that way as well. "You'll find a pier; wait there until the sun goes down and my sister will show up with her ferry to take you and whoever else to the Next Big Thing…whatever that is."

"You don't know?" asked Penny.

"Never asked. What comes after this place has nothing to do with my job. I suspect that I'll find out someday. Everyone does, after all. Anyways, if you'd rather try another go at the previous plane of existence, I can send you back…" the fisherman trailed off and started scratching his chin thoughtfully.

"You mean like reincarnation?" asked Penny.

"Yeah…you know, I just thought of something. If you wait until the right time, it could be possible to send you back to your body when it's repaired. You could be the very first person to ever come back from this shore to your old life. Wouldn't that be neat?"

Penny considered that, and then she shook her head. "I suspect that it would not be that simple, sir."

"Oh really?" asked the fisherman, grinning at her, "You know something I don't, Penny Polendina?"

"Just that people are not supposed to go back…they are supposed to move on."

"Quite wise of you. But what of your father, and your friends? What about your mission?" asked the fisherman seriously.

"Father won't give up on me, just because I died. He'll make a new me, and even if she isn't like me she will have my memories and carry on for me…besides," she looked down and flexed her fingers, "I _like_ being able to feel things, instead of having my processors tell me what things feel like. I've always wondered what wetness really felt like, and now I do."

"Alright then; you're officially the first person I've ever known who _turned down_ a chance to cheat me. But then I'm not too surprised. You're standing on the water; only those with almost nothing to regret about their life can do that. So, if you're not going back to your old life, will you reincarnate as someone new, or just move Onwards?"

"I'm not sure. If I go back as someone else, when I die, will I be myself again, or will I be the other person?"

"That's actually up to you. But you'll remember both. Those who go a few rounds on the reincarnation circuit remember all of their lives when they get here, if they stay here long enough. Eventually, after they're satisfied with the diversity of their decisions and life-paths, they get around to jumping on my sister's ferry."

"Hmm. It sounds like a big decision," decided Penny, "I think I'll take some time to consider it."

"Oh!" gasped the fisherman, "I almost forgot to tell you; there's someone at the lighthouse who'll probably have something to say to you, Penny Polendina."

"Oh? Well then, I guess I will go there for now. But first, may I ask you one more question?"

"Certainly," said the fisherman cheerfully.

"What have you been trying to reel in this whole time?" she asked, pointing at his bony fishing pole.

The fisherman's face fell, and he sighed. "A very heavy soul. One that you would…probably rather not meet."

"I see." Penny looked down at her feet, and then back up. "If I can stand on the water because I regret so little, is this soul heavy because it regrets so much?"

"Actually, I think a healthy dose of regret would make this guy a lot _lighter_. He's putting up a good fight, but I'll wear him down. Dead or alive, he's still only human, and I…well, I'm inexhaustible. No matter how long you run or how hard you fight, _everyone_ comes to me one way or another. He'll be no different in the end. You should move along, Penny Polendina. You were…interesting to speak with."

"And you as well, sir! See you around," said Penny, waving as she strode away towards the beach, and then on towards the lighthouse.

A/N: I am so sorry, guys! This was supposed to be up yesterday, but my Internet was out. But hey, better late than never, right? I'm pretty sure I could have done this one better, but I'm not sure how. Suggestions? Remember, feedback is essentially to a writer's growth. The review box is your friend…wink, wink.

PLEASEREVIEWI'LLLOVEYOUFOREVERGOODNIGHTAUSTINTEXASWHEREVERYOUARE!

Speaking of which, real quick, a huge thank you to Emperor Sunny, so far the only person to review this story. Review and maybe you'll see your name down here too?

Anyways, it's my personal hope that Penny _will_ come back, thanks to some back-up system. When Penny died, after I came down from my Blue Screen of Death, I thought to myself, "Hey, she's a robot, she probably has an internal back-up system that periodically links to an external server as an additional failsafe, right?" But then, I kind of warred with myself. On one hand, it would obviously be awesome for Penny to come back to us. Maybe she could become the new P in Team JNPR? That would be interesting. I can't help but feel that there's some significance to them having the same first letter in their names, in a world where the names of teams are made up of the first letters of the names of the team members. That the episode where they fought was named 'PvP' felt like some kind of lampshading to me, with a side of video game referencing of course, because this is Rooster Teeth after all. But I digress; as much as I'd love our precious Penny to come back to us, I also feel that once a show, especially an anime or animesque show like RWBY, brings someone back from death, it's only a matter of time before the Revolving Door of Death is in full effect. But here again, since Penny's a machine it could be justified in this case. Besides, we never found out what Penny's 'plan' to stay at Beacon was. Or maybe I've just been too fixated on the fact that _Penny freaking died_. Pyrrha's death didn't shake me as much since to some extent I had already been expecting her to die (her freaking name, though. And all the Achilles vibes.) but Penny's death…that, I had not been prepared for. Even when Cinder get a hold of her schematics and started scheme-ifying, even when Mercury made it very clear that some serious shit was 'bout ready to go down, I was certain that Penny would at least be _alive_ in the end…

Shows what I know, right? Anyways, all personal hopes and wishful thinking aside, we don't know for sure if they _will_ bring Penny back yet (fingers crossed, peeps!) so I needed to leave this open-ended. Then it occurred to me that while you can back-up the data on a computer, you can't really do that with a soul, unless Penny also had an internal storage device for her Aura that was programmed to kick in if she took critical enough damage, which would explain why she seemed to 'die' so quickly even though she didn't really take what I would consider a killing blow for a robot. I mine, sure, she was cut in half and had some limbs sheared off, but most robots in fiction can keep going after worse hits than that (Terminator, anyone? Hell, RoboCop could tank worse, and he was only _mostly_ a robot!) but then my hope took another blow from the Reality Stick. See, it's been established that Aura is a manifestation of the soul (or at least it's believed to be. I mean, how exactly can you _prove_ something like that?) but that doesn't necessarily mean that it's the same thing as the soul. So while it may be possible that we might see a robot that has Penny's looks, memories, and maybe even her Aura, that still doesn't mean it'll have Penny's soul. So in the end, I tried to make Penny's afterlife situation as open-ended as I could. If a Penny-lookalike that's not _quite_ Penny does show up, then I freaking called it! If Penny comes back and she really _is_ Penny…well, hell, I won't complain. In closing…let's see what happens, yeah?

See you next week, readers. Same RWBY time, same RWBY channel. Stay sensational, everyone.


	3. Part III

**On the Other Side.**

 **Part III: Face to Face.**

Pyrrha began to feel nervous as she approached the ancient-looking wooden doors of the lighthouse. The lighthouse itself was forty feet tall by Pyrrha's estimate, covered in chipped and peeling red paint. It was a pretty simple lighthouse, as far as lighthouses went, except for one glaring flaw. Instead of a sweeping beam of light, the top of the lighthouse seemed to be projecting a ray of solid darkness. And that wasn't the only strange thing going on. Pyrrha felt as though it had taken her hours, or maybe even the better part of a day or two, to reach the lighthouse, but Pyrrha didn't feel winded in the slightest, which she supposed made sense considering.

At some point during her trek, she wasn't sure when, her pajamas had changed into more sensible and comfortable traveling clothes; a baggy pair of swimming trunks and a loose-fitting cream-colored tee-shirt, with a fantastically comfortable pair of sandals. The Sun hadn't gone done very much in all that time, and when she looked back she could still see the fisherman standing in the distance. He raised an arm and waved to her, she thought, and a sudden banging made her turn back to the lighthouse. Someone in a yellow raincoat, who certainly hadn't been there before, was standing about twenty feet off the ground on a ladder that also hadn't been there before, nailing a fresh pair of decayed-looking boards over a dirty window. Approaching the lighthouse, Pyrrha cupped her hands to her mouth and shouted, "Hello, there! Are you the lighthouse keeper?"

Upon the ladder, the person turned and looked down to her, their face and figure hidden by the hood and expanse of their coat. Rather than reply, they simply pointed down at the lighthouse's door, and then turned back to their hammering. Deciding she wasn't going to getting anything more from what she was starting to suspect was some kind of specter, Pyrrha made her way to the door. Pyrrha was about to put her hand on the doorknob, but she stopped and started thinking. If there was someone waiting inside, it would only be polite to knock first, right? She raised her fist and began to rap smartly upon the ancient oaken door, but after the first knock the door _screamed_ at her and she jumped back, drawing Miló out of reflex.

"What was that for?" demanded a creaky voice that seemed to be emanating from the door itself, rather than the other side. Now that Pyrrha thought about it, she thought she could make out a vague approximation of facial features etched into the lines and grooves of the wood. Then the wood contorted to form a much more definite-looking face, complete with a mouth and nose; two black pebbles emerged from the door to serve as beady little eyes.

"I…I'm very sorry," said Pyrrha at once, sheathing her weapon and bowing humbly. "I didn't realize…"

The door started laughing and said, "I'm just messing with you, kiddo. I never get tired of pulling that one on the new arrivals. You fall for it every time! Seriously though, I'm made of _wood_. I don't feel pain, and even if I could I wouldn't because pain isn't really a _thing_ on this side."

"Oh. I see…um, may I enter, please?" Pyrrha asked.

"Of course, of course; if I weren't supposed to let folks through, I'd be a wall! Or at least I'd have a lock. Anyways, my job is to make sure you don't accidentally intrude on someone else's tearful afterlife reunion, so listen close; you wanna go straight down the hall, take the third left, then the second right, take the first elevator to the ninth floor, down the hall to your left to the second flight of stairs on your right and down two floors, go down aisle six, hang a right between the granola bars and the instant coffee, then the second left after Men's Footwear, and then straight on to Room P-17. If you start seeing movie posters and smell popcorn, you went too far somewhere. If you start hearing construction or opera, you went too far somewhere else. Got it?"

Pyrrha blinked for a few seconds, and then she said, "Um, could you maybe repeat that one more time, please? Or, is there a map, or a piece of paper and a writing utensil I could borrow?"

The door started laughing again. "Nah, I was just joking! Just open me up and I'll let you right into your assigned meeting room. Careful though! My knob is _very_ sensitive, if you know what I mean." The door's face began waggling its 'eyebrows' suggestively.

"…please tell me that's a joke as well," said a blushing Pyrrha.

"Yep! Enjoy your reunion!" said the door as it swung open, revealing an inky black void. Pyrrha stepped inside, and the door slammed shut behind her. For a moment she was in a state of near-total sensory deprivation. She saw nothing, heard nothing, smelled nothing, and tasted nothing. The only thing she felt was the floor beneath her feet, and even then it didn't feel like a floor so much as a vague sense of solidness, devoid of any discernible texture. Then, after a moment, the void around her began to resolve into the form of a room. First, a wooden floor appeared, spreading out from under her feet like a ripple on a pond. Next, four beige-colored walls rose up from the edges of the floor. Then the room began filling with various details; two twin-sized beds, a round little table with seats for three, a TV sitting on a dresser, a kitchenette, a nightstand with a lamp on it, and finally a door on the other side of the room. Pyrrha turned around and found that there was no door behind her, only a window. She pulled aside the curtains and her breath was taken by a gorgeous sundrenched desert vista.

"Spectacular, isn't it?" asked a voice behind her. Pyrrha whirled around and saw that another woman was now stretched out on one of the beds. She hadn't been there before, but Pyrrha had difficulty believing she had opened the door, crossed the room, and laid down on the bed in the short time her back had been turned, all in complete silence. She wrote it off as more afterlife weirdness.

"So it's you," Pyrrha said, surprised by her own calmness. She didn't know what she thought she should be feeling. Sadness? Pity? Anger? Shock? Maybe she was feeling them all at once, and she only felt calm because her mind was filtering out the overload.

"Yeah, it's me," said Amber sadly, sitting up slowly. "I cannot _begin_ to tell you how sorry I am that all of this happened. You should not have suffered for my carelessness…for my failure." The former Fall Maiden drew up her legs and hugged her knees, glancing at Pyrrha out of the corner of her eyes. She reminded Pyrrha of a child waiting to be scolded. "I don't blame you if you hate me…you lost so much…you lost _everything_ because I–"

"I don't hate you," Pyrrha said quickly. As soon as she said it, she realized she meant it. "You didn't do anything. It was all _her_ doing. You and I were just her victims. Casualties of war. And even if part of me _did_ blame you, well…you've lost as much as I have. We're both here, now, so there wouldn't be much point to holding a grudge."

Amber gave her a quizzical look. "But…but it _is_ my fault. I'm the reason you went after her…didn't you realize? In the brief moment we were connected, all of my animosity for her, my crazed desperation to make her suffer, it all spilled over into you. After she attacked me, I was…I was stuck. Stuck in some kind of limbo, drifting in the ocean, unable to move. I was completely alone, for so long; it felt like years, maybe even centuries. The only company I had was my own bitterness, and I couldn't stop reliving those last moments. Staring at that creepy…thing, feeling the power–the _life_ –draining out of me. I went mad, I think, and when we were connected I was so _relieved_. I tried to push all of the negativity, all of the helplessness and resentment I'd been trapped in my own head with; I pushed it all out into the first available outlet I had…you."

"Oh," said Pyrrha, feeling a little overwhelmed by Amber admission. _'Well, that explains my sudden episode of insanity…that must be what the fisherman meant.'_ "Well…I can't imagine how you must have felt, so I guess I have no right to judge your actions. I'm sure you didn't _mean_ for me to get hurt," Pyrrha reasoned.

Amber's eyes widened, and then moisture started to build up in their corners. "I…" she quickly buried her face in her arm and rubbed the budding tears away aggressively. She sniffed loudly and said, "Thank you…you're too kind, to forgive me like that. But still." She shook her head and looked down, wringing her hands. "None of this would have happened at all if I had just been able to fight them off…if I hadn't gone ahead without Mr. Branwen. Things would have been so different if I had only–"

"Stop that!" exclaimed Pyrrha, trying not to laugh and failing. Now she realized how she had looked to the fisherman. Amber jerked her head up and stared at Pyrrha in shock, as if her laughter had been some kind of bizarre exclamation in a foreign language. "Stop beating yourself up like that, Amber; you were _ambushed_. Your enemies knew exactly what they were doing, they had a plan. I saw first hand what kind of devious plan this woman was capable of; she almost brought an entire Kingdom to its knees. No offense, Amber, but you never stood a chance. Your failure was through no fault of your own."

Amber sniffed again and pulled a handkerchief out of her pocket to blow her nose. "That fisherman said something similar to me when I got here."

"And to me as well," said Pyrrha, sitting down next to Amber and resting a hand on her shoulder, offering her a kind smile.

Amber returned the smile tentatively, but then she frowned and said, "You know…we haven't been formally introduced, you realize that? Strange, considering the bond we shared, however briefly. We were joined at the _soul_ , for about fifteen seconds, but I don't even know your name."

Pyrrha offered her hand and said, "Pyrrha Nikos."

"Heh, well now I know why they picked you. Damn shame you died; you'd have made an _outstanding_ Huntress. I'm Amber Autumn," replied Amber, accepting the handshake.

"…Autumn, really? You were the Fall Maiden, and your last name just happened to be Autumn?" asked Pyrrha, half incredulous and half amused.

Amber turned away and shrugged, then gave Pyrrha a sidelong glance and a playful smirk. "Well…do you believe in destiny?"

Pyrrha blinked, and then she started snickering, then giggling, then chuckling, and finally broke down in peals of full-blown laughter, mirthful tears streaming from her eyes. She even slapped her knee. At some point she realized Amber was guffawing along with her. Pyrrha wasn't sure how long they carried on, but all too soon the moment had passed they were both drying their eyes. "Seriously, though," said Amber, still half-giggling, "I'd say that between the two of us, you definitely had the better choice of last words."

"Oh, really?"

"Hell yeah! You would not believe how lame mine were. She put that creepy-ass Grimm-glove on and I was all like, 'Please, don't!' I totally wussed out at the last second. Really, how lame can you get? Begging the bad guy for your life," Amber said bitterly, shaking her head, "All my bravado and bluster. I was the most fearless child in my village, the boldest student in my year at Sanctum, and then Haven, and even Mr. Branwen told me I was gutsier than most of his students…and then I blow it and lose my cool when I'm finally face to face with the reaper. I'll give you that I really had no control over when and where I kicked it, but I could have gone out with a little more dignity, right?"

Pyrrha shook her head. "You weren't afraid of dying. You were afraid of what she would do with your power."

Amber scoffed. "What makes you think that?"

"Because you admitted that it was your impulses that drove me to confront her, and that's what I was thinking when I went after her. That despite what Ozpin told me, what Jaune was trying to tell me, I knew I wouldn't be able to live with myself if I didn't try my utmost to stop her from abusing the Fall Mai–I mean, _your_ power. I threw caution to the wind because the thought of what she would do with that power scared me so much worse than the thought of dying at her hand. And I just know for a fact, don't ask me how, that we shared that fear while we were connected. That, and we had a saying at Sanctum–"

" _A warrior dies every time they show the enemy their back,_ " the two girls chorused in harmony. They both chuckled a bit, but more soberly this time. A moment of silence stretched between them, and then Amber remarked, "I think I recognize this room. You?"

"Yeah. It's the hotel room my parents and I stayed in when we took a vacation to Vacuo to celebrate my first Mistral Regional Championship. It just so happened that the day after we arrived the whole city got choked up by a sandstorm that lasted for most of the two weeks, so we spent most of our vacation inside watching movies and eating room service," Pyrrha recalled wistfully.

"Yeah, I stayed here once, too. I was alone, though. It was nice…I had time to myself, to hear myself think," said Amber, "I guess that's why this room looks this way; because this was one place we would both recognize and feel at peace. I always imagined the afterlife would be like a desert. Imagine my surprise when I wound up in an ocean."

"So, what will you do now?" asked Pyrrha, "Have you made your choice?"

"Nah. I think I'll wander the woods for a while before I move on," said Amber, "The next world might involve suffering and responsibility like our old world did. So I think I'll take advantage of the respite. What about you?"

"I think I'll ask to be sent back. I only had seventeen years on Remnant, and I didn't come close to doing half of what I had wanted. And as wary as I am of the thought of being a completely different person…all motivational speeches from mysterious fisherman-spirits aside, I'm still full of regrets and I'd rather not take them to the next world with me. Maybe another life or two will dull the pain."

"That sounds good," said Amber. Then she smiled, "Who knows. Maybe if, Oum forbid, that wretched woman actually wins, you'll grow up to be part of the resistance and get a rematch with her?"

Pyrrha laughed and shook her head. "I certainly hope not. If that happens it would mean my friends died fighting her. They won't give up, ever. I know they'll avenge me…I just wish I hadn't made that necessary."

"Hey, quit with the long face," said Amber sternly, "I'm still claiming responsibility for pushing you into a stupid last stand. You're not allowed to beat yourself up over that anymore. Former Fall Maiden's orders."

"Heh, yes ma'am," said Pyrrha with a chuckle, mock-saluting her new friend. _'Huh. I made a new friend in the afterlife. And that doesn't even faze me. Guess that means I've acclimated to being a spirit?'_

Amber stood up and said, "Well, it was an unexpected pleasure and surprisingly liberating experience to have met you, Pyrrha. I should get going, I want to explore as much of that forest as I can and if the walk here was any indicator, that's going to take centuries…or a few minutes, I'm not even sure anymore. Maybe I'll get the hang of time here before I move on. Happy trails, Pyrrha Nikos."

Pyrrha stood up too and said, "And you as well, Amber Autumn."

Amber started to turn around, but then she stopped and stood there for a moment. Then she unexpectedly launched forward and pulled Pyrrha into what might have been a bone-crushing hug, if Pyrrha still had bones. "I hope your next life makes up for your shitty death," she said, her voice choked up, "Good luck, Pyrrha." Then, before Pyrrha could say anything, a fiercely blushing Amber disengaged from her and ran out the door.

Pyrrha expected the room to fade away once Amber left, but it didn't. _'Oh, that's right. The fisherman said someone else was going to come to meet me. I should probably stay put until then.'_ With that thought in mind, Pyrrha lay down and stretched herself out on the bed. She didn't mean to, or even knew it was possible, but at some point she must have dozed off. The next thing she knew she heard someone knocking loudly and her eyes snapped open. She sat up and had a moment of bewilderment when she noticed she was no longer in the hotel room. She was sitting on a bench in what appeared to be one of the locker rooms at Amity Coliseum. It was an otherwise perfect replica, except that there was only one door. "Come in," said Pyrrha, a little anxious to see who her visitor was. The door opened, and Pyrrha was for once grateful to be dead, otherwise she was sure her heart would have stopped.

"Oh…"

"Of course…"

" _It's you._ "

A/N: Who is it? Who could it possibly be?! WHO?!

Just kidding, I'm pretty sure you already know. But, on the off-chance that you don't…

Find out next week! Buahahahahaha! But anyways, a thousand pardons for being late again, and this time even later than last time. I actually lost my laptop for three whole days, if you can believe it! And mad thanks to my reviewers (so far) trickstercast, kirby163, an anonymous Guest, and Emperor Sunny, who was the only one to review both chapters! Sunny, you get a brownie. Enjoy.

I hope you enjoyed this chapter, and I hope the next one will satisfy as well. Until then! Same RWBY time, same RWBY channel. Stay spectacular, everyone.


	4. Part IV

**On the Other Side.**

 **Part IV: Re-Penny-tance.**

When Penny reached the Lighthouse, she took a moment to ponder the contrary ray of darkness it emitted. And the raincoat-wearing specter that was dutifully wiping down the windows with a dirty rag and a spray bottle that appeared to spray out dirt. She must have been pondering for a long time, because the specter moved on to carve intricate patterns of cracks into the windows, chip some paint off, replace some good nails with rusty ones, and hammer a few strategically placed dents in the drainpipe. And after what Penny estimated had been a five-hundred-and-thirty hour day, the Sun was finally touching the horizon. Finally, she heard a creaky voice speak up, "Hey! Are you going to stare all day, or are you going to knock?!" Penny tilted her head back down and stared at the door. It had developed a rudimentary face. "You have the most absurdly long attention span of any mortal I've ever seen. It's insane!" proclaimed the door.

"Oh. My apologies. I had not realized you were sentient," said Penny, bowing to the door. "Could you tell me, why does that person appear to be performing reverse-maintenance on the lighthouse? And why is the lighthouse casting out a ray of darkness?"

"How should I know? I'm just a door. What the lighthouse and the lighthouse keeper do have nothing to do with my job. Look, you wanna meet the person waiting for you, or what?"

"What's what?" asked Penny, having never heard that expression before.

"What?" asked the door.

"What is what?" repeated Penny, mistaking the door's question for an answer.

"I heard you the first time you said it. What?" repeated the door.

"The first time I said what?" asked Penny.

"What about it?!" cried out the door.

"What about what?" asked Penny.

"I don't freaking know, you're the one who brought what up!"

"Nothing. What's up with you?" asked Penny.

"ARRRGHHH!" screamed the door, flying open to reveal the void beyond. A strong gust of wind suddenly kicked up and blasted Penny into the lighthouse, and the door slammed shut behind her.

"What a rude door," said Penny, feeling slightly put-off. She turned around to admonish the door, but found that a completely different, more modern, and decidedly faceless door had taken its place. "Are you sentient as well?" she asked, just to be polite. When it didn't reply, she tentatively knocked on it. It was metal.

A moment passed, and Penny had just lifted her fist to knock again when a muffled voice said, "Come in."

Penny pushed the door open and stepped into what she immediately recognized as a locker room from the Amity Coliseum. She also immediately recognized the room's sole occupant. "Oh…" said Penny.

"Of course…" said Pyrrha, her eyes wide and a tear already leaking from her left eye.

" _It's you,_ " they both said.

Penny was shocked for a moment, and suddenly felt a powerful surge of conflicting emotions rise up. As a robot with an Aura, soul, and everything, she had felt emotions before. But they had never been this…raw. This _painful_. Suddenly, she was reliving her final moments; the stunned surprise when her swords flew back at her, followed by heart-clenching fear when her strings caught on her, followed by anger and sorrow when she realized she was shutting down, followed by even greater fear at the very last second, when she found herself wondering; what if something went wrong? What if they couldn't bring her back? What if her internal memory device was damaged? Was this the end?

Back then, she had been helpless. By the time she had realized what was happening, there was nothing she could do about it. This time, on the other hand…

Penny didn't know what she had done until after she had grabbed Pyrrha and slammed her into the wall. "You killed me!" she screamed in Pyrrha's face, and slammed her against the wall again to illustrate her feelings on that matter. "Why?! Why would you do that to me?" Pyrrha opened her mouth, but Penny abruptly decided that she didn't care what the other girl's excuse was; it was Penny Payback Time. The former gynoid drew her fist back and slammed it into Pyrrha's open mouth as hard as she could, and then she did it again, and again, _and again,_ _ **and again**_.

She lost track of how much time she had spent slugging Pyrrha in the face, and given the screwy nature of time in this world who knows how long it was. Eventually, however, her haze of rage cleared enough for her to notice that her attacks weren't really doing anything but creating an impressively sizable dent in the wall behind her human punching bag.

Having never _felt_ physical pain or exhaustion in life, it never occurred to Penny that her arm ought to feel tired by now, or that her knuckles should be sore. But she definitely realized that Pyrrha seemed completely unaffected by her vicious assault; no blood or bruises or anything. Penny unexpectedly froze, fist hanging in the air while her other hand still held Pyrrha's shoulder in a vise-grip.

The two redheads stared at each other mutely for a long, tense moment. Anger continued to burn in Penny's cyan eyes, though it was giving way to puzzlement, and Pyrrha's bright greens swam with guilt and remorse. At length, Penny asked, "You…didn't feel any of those, did you?"

Pyrrha shook her head sadly. "I know it doesn't help, but I wish they had hurt. I deserve to suffer for what I did to you, I truly believe that…but it wasn't my fault–"

"The hell it wasn't!" Penny shouted, practically spitting in her face, "It most certainly wasn't a stiff breeze that made my swords rebound at me, that made my strings _rip me to pieces!_ "

"Yes, I killed you, Penny," Pyrrha admitted, her tone heartbroken, tears spilling from her eyes, "But I didn't mean to. I was tricked–"

"Tricked?!" Penny screamed hysterically. Impulsively, she grabbed Pyrrha and lifted her bodily overhead and threw her into the lockers. Penny stomped over to her, fully intending to commit further violence, when suddenly a stray thought broke free from the rational part of her mind and pierced her crimson veil of rage.

Her eyes widened and she stumbled to a stop. She stared down at Pyrrha in shock, as if just noticing her all over again, but this time her mouth fell open in an expression of utter horror. "Pyrrha," she said softly, "Why are you here?"

Pyrrha picked herself back up off the floor and gave Penny a sad smile. "Well…why are you here?" she asked rhetorically.

"I…oh, Pyrrha," Penny said sadly. She was surprised by her own change of heart. She hadn't met Pyrrha before their match, but Ruby had told her about her. By Ruby's account, she was a good person and a wonderful friend. Regardless of how Penny felt about the girl that had ended her, if both of them were here it meant that Ruby, Penny's very best friend, had lost _two_ good friends in one day.

Penny couldn't help but feel a terrible weight of sympathetic grief for her friend. And now that she realized that Pyrrha was dead as well…well, she didn't feel like she could hold a grudge against her anymore. She recalled a book on philosophy she had read back home, in her father's lab, that said that aside from being the end of one's life, death was also supposed to be the end of one's suffering. If both of them were dead, Penny figured, then there was no need for them to go on suffering. Still, there was one question Penny needed answered.

"What… _exactly_ …did you mean, when you said you were 'tricked' into killing me?" Penny asked.

Pyrrha looked aside for a moment, took a deep breath, and locked eyes with Penny once more. This time, her eyes were determined. "To begin with, I was…under a lot of stress, before our match. Professor Ozpin, and Ironwood and Goodwitch; they let me in on something secret, and asked me to make a choice. But it was an impos–no, a _very difficult_ choice, and…well, it was kind of driving me crazy, just a little. My Semblance was reacting to my agitated mental state, I think; becoming harder for me to control precisely. It was getting worse during our match–I almost warped my weapons, in fact–and when you prepared your last attack…" Pyrrha seemed to falter, and for a second Penny thought she could actually _feel_ the pain in Pyrrha's voice.

But she shoved it aside and asked sternly, "How were you tricked, Pyrrha Nikos?"

"…your swords…I know this won't make any sense, but they…they seemed to _multiply_ , right before my eyes," Pyrrha said, sitting down on a bench so quickly that Penny wondered if she had felt her knees about to give out. "At first it was the normal amount, but the next thing I knew I was staring at a solid wall of blades, and they were all coming at me, and I panicked. I panicked, and I just…I just pushed them back. I…didn't mean to hurt you, Penny. It was just…just blind panic and horrible luck. But, for what it's worth…I am so, _so_ sorry that you died, Penny." Pyrrha let her head droop, tears spilling once more.

' _My swords…multiplied?'_ Penny thought to herself. _'That's impossible…but somehow I don't believe that she's lying. So then…somehow, she really was tricked into killing me. But how, and why? Was it the person who tricked her that also…sent her here?'_ Penny felt a wave of misery and self-loathing wash over her, and this time she knew that it really was Pyrrha's feelings she was feeling.

With a sigh, Penny knelt down and pulled Pyrrha into a tight hug. "It's okay, Pyrrha. If you were tricked, then I guess it wasn't your fault after all…I forgive you." Pyrrha gave a startled gasp, right next to Penny's ear, and then she hugged the ginger-haired girl back as tightly as she could. She started sobbing into Penny's shoulder, and for the first time ever Penny felt hot moisture well up in her eyes and spill out as her spirit shared the pain Pyrrha was releasing. "I'm sorry that you died, too," she added, her voice cracking; another first for her.

"Thank you," Pyrrha gasped weakly when she was finally able to control her breathing again. She pulled back from Penny and started wiping the tears away from her eyes. "Thank you so much. Even though Ruby and Jaune and that Fisherman Spirit all told me that I wasn't responsible…I guess I still felt guilty, anyways. I still do, more than a little, but–"

"No," Penny said bluntly, standing and pulling Pyrrha up to her feet effortlessly. "You are most absolutely _not_ permitted to feel guilt over my premature termination any longer, Friend Pyrrha." Penny smiled brightly in the face of Pyrrha's utterly befuddled expression. "I get the feeling that you've already beaten yourself up enough over it. I wouldn't want to be the cause of pain for anyone good enough to be counted among Ruby's best friends."

"R-really? Ruby told you I w-was one of her b-best friends?" asked a completely bemused Pyrrha.

Penny nodded firmly. "Ruby always spoke most highly both of your potential as a Huntress and your value as a friend. She told me you were honorable and just, and one of the most sincere and selfless people she had ever had the privilege of meeting. She had great admiration for you, and she told me that she hoped to be as good a fighter as you someday. Didn't you know?" Penny asked.

Pyrrha laughed and blushed, "I…don't really like to toot my horn so much…honestly, I admired her as well. I've never met anyone quite like Ruby. She's…a very special person, with a very special soul. I can tell that she'll do incredible things, someday."

"I concur," said Penny. A troubled thought crossed her mind, and she frowned. "Pyrrha…how did _you_ die?" she asked.

Pyrrha's face fell, and she sighed and said, "It's…kind of a long story. I guess to start, I'd have to tell you what Ozpin and the others told me…after all, we're on the Other Side, so there's really no need to keep it a secret anymore."

And so Pyrrha told the tale. She told Penny about the Maidens, about Amber, about the _very difficult_ choice she had been presented and what saying 'yes' might have meant for her. She told her about Jaune's attempt to comfort her and her hysterical reaction, feeling that Penny deserved to know what Pyrrha had meant when she said she had been 'stressed', and elaborated further on the anxiety she had felt leading up to their fateful match.

Then she explained what had happened after Penny's death; Cinder's broadcast, the Grimm and White Fang attack on Beacon and the Amity Coliseum, how General Ironwood's Knights had gone out of control, and how Ruby had gone off on her own to take back Ironwood's ship while Teams JNPR, CFVY, SSSN, ABRN, and Flynt Coal and Neon Katt from Team FNKI had all gone to Beacon to fight the good fight.

Then, speaking as quickly as she could to avoid having yet another emotional breakdown, Pyrrha explained how she and Jaune had followed Ozpin down to the Vault so she could receive the Fall Maiden's powers, how Cinder had interrupted by killing Amber and taking the power for herself, and how Ozpin had told her and Jaune to go get help, but that shortly after getting back out of the building they had seen Cinder going for the CCT tower.

She told Penny about the gigantic freaking Grimm Dragon and her decision to go after Cinder alone, as well as why she had. She glossed over the details of her parting ways with Jaune, though. Somehow, she just wasn't keen on talking about that part. Then, trying her hardest not to get too emotional about it (she broke down crying and had to stop and recompose herself halfway through, anyways) she had described her battle with Cinder.

"And then…she fired an arrow into my heart and…incinerated me," Pyrrha finally finished, feeling completely emotionally drained. She didn't even bother rubbing the moisture off her cheeks this time. If pain _were_ still a thing on this side, she was sure her cheeks would be raw by now.

Penny was crying as well, though she seemed much calmer about it. She was now seated on the bench next to Pyrrha, a hopefully-comforting hand on the other girl's shoulder. "That's so horrible," she said in a very small voice, "Pyrrha…you were so brave. The way you died was simply _awful_ …but, all things considered…I think I envy you," she admitted. "I think you had a better death than I. At least your death wasn't the result of blind panic and terrible luck," Penny added, trying to smile.

"Well, in a way, I think it might have been. The thought of that woman getting away with all that power certainly made me want to panic," said Pyrrha.

"Hey, do you think that Amber person is somewhere around here?" Penny asked.

"She is. I've already met her. She decided to stay and wander around for a while before going Onwards. I think I'll return to Remnant for another go…what about you?" Pyrrha asked, turning to face her new friend. Thinking on that, Pyrrha almost wanted to laugh at the sheer strangeness of their relationship at this point. First, strangers with a mutual friend, then opponents in the ring, then unwitting-killer and victim, and now…friends.

The thought made Pyrrha feel warm inside, wearing away more of the jagged ache she had been feeling since the match. To her surprise, she realized that that particular wound was almost completely gone. _'I guess it's true, what Mother always said. A little forgiveness really does go a long way,'_ she mused.

"Hmm. I have not yet made a decision," Penny said in an amusingly decisive-sounding tone. "I'll have to think on it carefully."

"Well, I'm in no hurry…if you wouldn't mind the company of a familiar face, I suppose I could hang around until you decide…if you don't mind," Pyrrha offered tentatively.

Penny beamed at her, "I think that sounds like a _sensational_ idea, Friend Pyrrha!" Then Penny's expression darkened, and she asked, "Do you think any more of our friends might have…fallen…in the battle?"

"I hope not. The Fisherman said no one else that we knew was on their way here, but given how strangely time flows here the battle could still be raging. Or all of our friends could be well into their old age by now, who knows?" said Pyrrha with a shrug.

The two girls sat there in companionable silence for a time, and they both privately hoped and prayed for their friends' safety. Then, without warning, Penny stood up. "We've been here a while. I think we should be moving on, now. What do you say, Pyrrha?"

"I think that sounds grand. I prefer moving over brooding any day," said Pyrrha as she stood up.

And so the two friends made their way to the door and together, shoulder to shoulder, they set back out into the great wide yonder that was the Other Side. Who knows what strange and wonderful adventures might await them? Only time would tell.

" _For it is in passing that we achieve_ _ **immortality**_ _. Through this, we become a paragon of virtue and glory to rise above all. Infinite in distance and_ _ **unbound by death**_ _, I release your soul, and by my shoulder, protect thee." –Pyrrha Nikos._

A/N: DONE! Except not quite yet. Yeah, I got another Stroke of Brilliance a while back, so there's going to be _one more chapter_. Part V will focus on…well, you'll see. I give mad thanks to my reviewers: Emperor Sunny, trickstercast, kirby163, 1228248, and three anonymous Guests. You guys are gold.

But anyways, yeah, this chapter took _so long_ to write. Way longer than the other three. I knew I wanted it to end with Penny and Pyrrha teaming up to explore the afterlife together as Dos Compadres, but there was the sticking point of, you know, Pyrrha being the one who (physically) killed Penny. I know Penny's a nice girl and all, but still, she feels anger just like everybody else, so I didn't think it'd be very realistic for her to get all buddy-buddy with Pyrrha too quickly. So, yeah. I'm not all that good at writing confrontations that don't end in a fight to the death…or at least end in what starts as a fight to the death, so I hope I didn't mess it up. Did I make Penny too harsh? Too quick to forgive? Did I mess up Pyrrha's explanation? Please leave a review so that I know how I did, _please_! You don't have to go into a detailed critique if you don't want to, but at the very least tell me how well this chapter worked out overall. And if you do leave a review, let me know if you'd be interested in reading some more Pyrrha/Penny post-mortem friendship craziness. I have a few ideas, but whether or not I implement them depends on whether or not I think they'll get an audience.

So anyways, tune in next time (it's going to take a little longer than a week, but hopefully not TOO much longer) for the long-overdue conclusion of _On The Other Side_. Same RWBY time, same RWBY channel. Stay phenomenal, everyone.


End file.
